Apples are one of my favourite fruits to bake with. As well as apple pie, apple sauce, and baked apples, caged apples are a definite favourite.
In the UK I always used Bramley apples for baking, but I soon realised on arriving in Spain they were few and far between.
The supermarkets and open air markets always have a wonderful selection of fruit and vegetable stalls. Apples are one thing that are always stocked. I have tried various eating apples over the past 18 years of living here and I have to say, they have all worked fine. Some apples are not as sweet as others, so you can simply compensate by adding a little more sweetness when you bake with them.
About mincemeat and mixed spice for caged apples
I like to make my own sweet mincemeat for this recipe and also use my own mix of mixed spice – You can find the recipe for mixed spice here! And the recipe for sweet mincemeat is here!
I find the winter months (yes we do have a winter of sorts here in Spain), are a great excuse to light the ‘BIG’ oven and shut myself away from the busy household making myself look busy. I say ‘look busy’, I am being busy in a selfish way. I am snug and warm, listening to some music creating delicious food for the family. If shutting myself away, peeling apples,and cooking desserts is a bad thing then so be it!
The first time I made these, it took me some time to work out how to make the lattice on the pastry, but to help you create this dessert, I have done this little diagram to help you. It is simple, it just takes a few minutes to get them all cut properly. Do keep them uniform, it really does help with the presentation.
I cant quite remember which apples I used for this recipe, but obviously as you can see from the photograph they are red ones – They are just a normal eating apple and they worked a treat.
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Caged Apples
Ingredients
- 2 Apples, peeled, cored and cut in half
- 1 Sheet Sheet of ready made puff pastry
- 4 tsp Sweet mincemeat. Click on the link in comments to see how to make your own)
- 100 g Melted butter – I used unsalted butter
- 1 tsp Brown sugar
- 1 tsp Teaspoon ground cinnamon
- 1 Beaten egg
Instructions
- Pre heat your oven to 200 deg C and
- Line a baking sheet with baking paper, grease the paper with oil, or butter.
- Cut your pastry sheet into 9 equal squares (you will be using 8 of them)
- Take 4 squares and cut them making slits matching the diagram shown above. You start with 5 along the top and bottom of your square and then add the rest in between. You should finish with rows of 3 and 4 slits.
- Sit the other 4 uncut squares on your baking sheet.
- Put a teaspoon of mincemeat in the hole of each apple where the core has been removed and sit it mincemeat side down on the pastry squares.Brush around the edges of these with a little beaten egg.
- Add your cinnamon and sugar to the melted butter and brush each apple generously.
- You now need to gently pick up the 4 squares that you have added the slits to, they open out a little revealing a lattice pattern. Sit it on top of your apples and pinch the base and top edges together to seal.
- Brush the top and edges with beaten egg and sprinkle a little more sugar over each.
- Bake for around 15 – 20 minutes until puffed and golden. Serve with cream, ice cream, or vanilla custard.